Analytic psychotherapist and art historian, Robert Snell joins us to discuss his forthcoming book, Portraits of the Insane: Théodore Géricault and the Subject of Psychotherapy.
In the gloomy aftermath of the 1789 Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the French painter Théodore Géricault (1791–1824) made a series of portraits of patients in an asylum or clinic. The paintings are unprecedented: they show people designated as insane as ordinary, unique individuals. They point to a new, essentially democratic conception of the human being, sane or mad, as available for relationship and communication: a ‘therapeutic subject’. Made during a period of massive social, cultural, and economic transformation, they register a critical moment in the history of subjectivity, and connect us to some living roots of psychoanalysis.They challenge us profoundly, in our own conflicted era, to find responses in ourselves to the stranger in our midst.
‘The scope of this book is remarkable. Robert Snell’s meditation on five portraits of mad people by Géricault is the springboard for a fascinating cultural investigation. He surveys two centuries of change in the understanding of human nature, and considers how this is reflected in changing approaches to the treatment of madness.The breadth and depth of scholarship on offer here is exceptional, and this admirable book is an object lesson in the relation of psychoanalysis to the history of ideas.’ — Michael Parsons, British Psychoanalytical Society and French Psychoanalytic Association
Robert Snell is an analytic psychotherapist and art historian, a member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Therapeutic Education at Roehampton University.
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Open discussion end of session 1
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Jordan McKenzie
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Florence Schechter
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Johnny Golding
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- David Morgan
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Ivan Ward
Conference: Solitary Pleasures in art and psychoanalysis- Milja Kaunisto
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: What Might Clinical Psychoanalysis Learn from Queer Theories of Sexuality?
Conference: Mourning and Melancholia
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